Art meets medical mycology

Our Body is a Planet

Our artist in residence, Léonie Hampton, premiered her film “Your Body is a Planet” at the Exeter Phoenix and on Zoom on February 3rd, followed by a talk about the film.
“This residency has been a deeply inspiring and enriching experience. A mixture of horror and beauty grew as I learnt from the stories and images about fungi that the scientists shared with me. The film is truly a collaborative outcome that tries to capture the journey I was taken on. Thank you to everyone who contributed their thoughts, time and work to make this film come alive. “ Léonie

Researching Resistance

Four MRC CMM members were featured in the art exhibition “Researching Resistance” by Simon Ryder.

Simon is an artist focused on “the places and landscapes we carry within us”. It features portraits of fifteen members of the University of Exeter’s AMR Network, all from different research areas and career levels, to demonstrate the wide range of people working together to tackle AMR.

Pharmakon by Still/Moving

An exciting new sculpture “Pharmakon”, highlighting the use of science to tackle the global burden of human fungal diseases, was launched on 14th June 2022. The MRC CMM commissioned artists Still/Moving to produce this public artwork. The sculpture is installed outside the Geoffrey Pope Building where the Centre is located.

The sculpture will be included in the University of Exeter’s Sculpture Walk and become the 40^th sculpture belonging to the University.

Performing the Mycobiome

Commissioned by Coventry 2021 UK City of Culture and Coventry Biennial, becoming fungi, becoming forest revealed human entanglements in this shimmering ‘biome’ of interacting beings and systems (humans, fungi, trees, microbes, and other life), including a collaboration with scientists at the MRC CMM to exploring “Performing the Mycobiome“. Performances and workshops attracted hundreds of people in Autumn 2021.

Peony Gent's ‘A Brick in the Wall'

The MRC Centre for Medical Mycology commissioned illustrator and poet Peony Gent to produce a printed piece of work to highlight the urgent need for more research into medical mycology. Peony got to know the staff at CMM and learned more about the fight against fungal infections. ‘A Brick in the Wall’ is the result of this collaboration.

For more about this project, please see below.